Things seem to be moving in a positive direction in Jena, LA. Nonetheless, I want to support the civil rights activism that has been ignited around the shameful events there.
Please sign this petition to show your support for fairness and justice for the six boys in Jena.
For more information about the Jena Six, check out the Color of Change website.
Well, it is happening. I’ve been offered a dream job in my favorite city. G and I are picking up and leaving the great state of California and moving to Chicago. Both of us have lived here for just about our entire adult lives, so this is going to be an enormous change.
But I am a Midwestern girl, and I know I’m going to love it there. G knows that it is a great town to visit, but she is stepping out on faith that I am leading both of us to a good place.
She can trust me. Chicago is AWESOME!
Things are falling into place as if this was all meant to be. I keep waiting for something to go wrong, for there to be some major glitch that would make everything just totally suck. It’s a very stressful time, don’t get me wrong. But all of the little details are so far coming off without a hitch (knock on wood…thunk).
Perhaps it has a lot to do with our search for housing. We went to Chicago and managed to find a place to live in one weekend. In the Bay Area we’re used to dealing with lots of high-priced, tiny, crumby apartments, and even though we knew Chicago is a totally different housing market, we just couldn’t let go of Bay Area expectations.
We looked at our fair share of crumby apartments, to be sure. In one place I would guess that the bath tub hadn’t been cleaned the entire time that the three male roommates had occupied the apartment. And it wasn’t just to boys who were slobs, if you think I’m being sexist. In another apartment shared by three young women, there was half-eaten food on the floor and dirty clothes strewn everywhere. What the deal with landlords in Chicago showing apartments that are not only occupied (which is actually understandable to a degree), but are occupied by slobs who are truly disgusting? I walked out of some of these places feeling like I needed to take a bath. But I digress.
We found the most beautiful apartment we could imagine (photos to come). When we walked into the place our jaws hit the gorgeous hardwood floors. We gaped at the twelve-foot ceilings, the spacious living areas, the original built-in cabinetry with leaded glass, and we mouthed to each other “Oh my God!” I whispered to G “This is the one!” We couldn’t believe it. We were sure that something had to be wrong. We couldn’t possibly afford the rent here, or there must be something wrong with the neighborhood. We will be living in the Uptown neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, which is a bit rough, but nothing that we’re not used to.
Now we’re fantasizing about growing tomatoes and herbs on our front patio, grilling in the back, setting up a yoga and meditation room, entertaining friends at many fabulous dinner parties, and simply occupying opposite sides of the apartment! We’re so used to living in small quarters and needing to occupy the same room! This will be real freedom.
Make no mistake, we are going to miss the Bay Area a lot. Probably immediately as winter sets in there. We’ll miss our friends, no doubt, we’ll miss the fantastic weather, the farmers market down the street, the bakery, the fantastic dining, our church. I have adopted Oakland as my home. I will most certainly be homesick for some time.
But when I first moved here fifteen years ago, I was homesick for Chicago. So here I go back home again.
My friends are going to think I have lost my mind. Skaters will likely call me a poser. Perhaps it is all true. But I consider this my ecologically friendly mid-life convertible (a little early, I would emphasize).
I have secretly harbored a desire to be a skater for years. I work with a guy who custom makes beautiful skateboards, so Gillian broke down and got me one for my birthday. I had my first lesson the other day, and I’m hooked. It is so fun! I also found out that I am a goofy foot (I prefer to lead with my left foot, though I am right-handed).
Here I am with Gillian and Christopher, the maker.
Here is Christopher’s website, Malu Long Boards.
How could I not be inspired to skate? Now that we’re moving to Chicago (more on that later), you can spot me in the spring cruising on the shores of Lake Michigan.
*I blatantly stole this from another blogger, who had copied it from somewhere else.
I have become a social networking fool. You can find me at any one of many social networking sites, most of which I list in the side bar of my blog. By far, Ma.gnolia is my favorite.
Ma.gnolia was founded by my friend and fellow Earlhamite, Larry Halff. Put simply, Ma.gnolia is a tool where you can save and share bookmarks. This is useful for many reasons. First, you can access your favorite sites from any computer. You can also create your own tags, essentially categorizing, and organizing your bookmarks in a way that feels natural to you.
The beauty of it is that you can share your sites with others who share your interests, and discover new sites in the same way. This is where the social part comes in. You can create or join groups with shared interests (like knitting or yoga). You can also have contacts with other Ma.gnolia members, which also facilitates sharing sites. The three latest links that your contacts and groups have saved appear on your home page. There’s also little side bar menus which show you the most recent links that random people have saved. You can also see the “Hot Groups” which shows you groups that are particularly active. It is so satisfying to see my links and my groups appear in those side bar menus. It makes me feel so popular.
One really nice feature is that you can thank people for their links. I have made a few contacts that way, thanking or being thanked. I was thrilled the day that Henry thanked me for my Out in Scripture link. It was just such a nice thing to be thanked for sharing a link that I like. I added him as a contact after I saw his link to the Music Row Democrats, a website for promoting country musicians with progressive politics. Since then, I have been able to keep tabs on the links that Henry is sharing, which is really cool because he is discovering stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily come across on my own.
I have waded into the waters of social networking, blogging, and the like this past year, tentatively exploring the possibilities. Information professional and shy person that I am, this is a perfect way for me to gently put feelers out there and see what building on-line community is all about. I plan to do more on a professional level in the coming months, but I’m still feeling a little be timid about it. The personal and the professional really collide here, and I have been more comfortable having a clear separation between my two worlds.
However, as I go further down the road into management in my career, I really appreciate it when people bring their whole selves into the work place. It’s how creativity can really be applied to help build a better mouse trap, if you will. So, to lead by example, I will begin to share more of what I am setting up professionally with my colleagues, starting with two groups that I have created on Ma.gnolia, Development Research and Fundraising and Philanthropy.
Sharing these Ma.gnolia groups more widely with my professional colleagues will give folks access to my personal web presence. They’ll be able to check out my Ma.gnolia profile, see what groups I’m interested in, and check out the link to my blog, which will lead them to my presence on Pandora, MySpace, or Cork’d, which will tell you what I think about the wine I am drinking (though I have yet to use this one much, I just think it’s really cool).
Ultimately, This is what I want, because this is bringing social networking to full fruition, which I feel I have yet to do. I’m nervous about it, but Ma.gnolia is a web tool that I think my fellow information professionals will get really excited about.
And that’s what social networking is all about, right?
Paradoxologies 